<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>The Night Guard by waywardwritings</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26614084">The Night Guard</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/waywardwritings/pseuds/waywardwritings'>waywardwritings</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Merlin (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>BAMF Reader, First Kiss, Happy Ending, Love Confessions, M/M, Mutual Pining, Originally Posted on Tumblr, POV Switches, Worried Arthur Pendragon (Merlin), male reader - Freeform</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 05:26:16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,747</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26614084</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/waywardwritings/pseuds/waywardwritings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur is walking down the hall, Merlin not far behind, ready to head in for the night. He sees you wait for him by the door making him smile. You smile at him and wait patiently for Arthur to be standing in front of you before he began talking. “Good evening sire.” You greet.<br/>“For the last time (Y/n) you can call me Arthur.” Arthur shakes his head.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>arthur pendragon/reader</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>20</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Night Guard</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Orignally posted on Tumblr, planning to do all BBC Merlin characters with male readers since there appears to be a gap.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Arthur is walking down the hall, Merlin not far behind, ready to head in for the night. He sees you wait for him by the door making him smile. You smile at him and wait patiently for Arthur to be standing in front of you before he began talking. “Good evening sire.” You greet.<br/>“For the last time (Y/n) you can call me Arthur.” Arthur shakes his head.<br/>“Of course Arthur, there is a matter of which I would like to discuss.” <br/>“Come on in then.” Arthur says as he deflates a bit.</p>
<p>You follow Arthur and Merlin into the room. Cracking your knuckles to relieve some of your nervous tension. Merlin was rushing around sorting Arthur out. “So… what is this matter you wish to discuss, (Y/n).”<br/>“Yes, my sister is wedding her beloved and would like to inquire if I could spend some time with her and the rest of my family during this occasion.” You ask hopefully.<br/>“Of course, give them my congratulations, how long are you thinking?” Arthur conceals his horror of the fact he may not see you for a few days.<br/>“Three weeks.” You smile, excited at the opportunity to see your family for this long.<br/>“Long time for a wedding.” Arthur blurts out.<br/>“Well if you need me to not be…” You knew that for three weeks you were pushing it  mentally kicking yourself.<br/>“No no that’s not the problem, it’ll just be odd since I have seen you everyday for a long time.” Arthur back tracks.<br/>“Four years.” You smile fondly.<br/>“Already?” <br/>“Yes, quite remarkable isn’t it, anyway I’ll be leaving tomorrow afternoon so I’ll be here tonight and I have found a temporary guard.”<br/>“Okay, goodnight I’ll see you in three weeks.” Arthur nodded.<br/>“Good Night.”</p>
<p>You leave the room to stand guard. While Arthur just stares at the door before Merlin nudges him and smiles knowingly. “Shut up Merlin.”<br/>Merlin laughs putting out the candles as Arthur goes to bed.</p>
<p>True to your word you are gone by the afternoon, Arthur knows because he watches you leave from his window, he can’t deny that you look very appealing in civilian clothing. Enhanced by the fact it was a rare sight, unfortunately for Arthur, you were walking away from the citadel and he already misses you.</p>
<p>~~~</p>
<p>It had been a week since (Y/n) had left and everything seems to have gone into shambles. There had been a rise in assassination attempts, Arthur hasn’t slept or eaten properly and Merlin is so close to passing out in exhaustion its frightening.  Arthur could not walk around the castle with one of the knights escorting him which was frustrating him further. He honestly didn’t know how they could last another two weeks without (Y/n), if anyone had known how much he did around the castle and how important he was to the functioning of the kingdom he would have never been able to leave.</p>
<p>~~~~</p>
<p>You are walking back to Camelot after a horrible feeling washed over you a couple of days after the wedding, you couldn’t get the thought out of your head so here you were walking back a week early. Many horrible thoughts rolled around your head. You’d never forgive yourself if something happened to Arthur, the very idea made you feel sick inside. It would be your fault for leaving for so long despite your better judgement. After years of stopping assassins up to fifteen times a month unnoticed by the higher ups. You walked up a hill in order to glance at Camelot from afar, and to your horror he saw the castle with charcoal smoke raging above it. Then you started to run.</p>
<p>~~~</p>
<p>Well this has been a great two weeks Arthur thought to himself while magically bound on the floor with the knights, Merlin and Guinevere. While they were struggling to escape their bounds the sorcerer sits lazily on the throne with a smug smile on their face. They were droning on about Uther and his genocide of the magical population, Arthur sitting there thinking that its getting harder to convince the council to lift the ban on magic when this happens all the time. (Y/n) would urge for diplomacy at a time like this but Arthur had never been great with words. But he figures it's worth a shot anyway. “What’s your name?”</p>
<p>Well that was definitely a start Arthur thought bitterly. The sorcerer narrows his eyes at him but answers anyway, “Romulus.”</p>
<p>“Okay, Romulus, why do you think it aids your cause by attacking us,” Arthur asks, a little too bluntly for his liking.</p>
<p>This angers Romulus greatly as he continues his rant about all Pendragons being tyrannical rulers.</p>
<p>~~~~</p>
<p>It only takes you half an hour to get to the citadel, but there are enemy soldiers everywhere. Getting into the castle would be the easy part but finding Arthur significantly harder. You cut off your thought process, knowing you had to actually get into the castle first. Raising any alarms could hurt anyone trapped inside. So you sneak round to the servant entrance. </p>
<p>Once you get into the castle the first you notice is that the people he brought with them are trained fighters and decent mercenaries by the look of it. This is not going to be easy you thought to yourself. Quietly dispatching as many as possible before anybody notices.</p>
<p>You take all of the servant shortcuts to avoid slipping into the great hall unnoticed and you see everyone in chains, you hear the sorcerer rant about freeing the magical people of Albion you roll your eyes. Not because he is wrong, nope you agree wholeheartedly just his methods of course you don’t blame the man though so you decide to interrupt. “Hey man.”<br/>His head snaps to your direction. “Who are you?”<br/>“The weirdo who stands outside the King’s door every night.”<br/>“Oh you're the guard everyone tells me to worry about.”<br/>“Yep.”<br/>“You had the perfect opportunity to kill me?”<br/>“Yeah, but talking to you seems to be a better option.”<br/>“How would you know?”</p>
<p>Shit you didn’t think this through. “Well…”<br/>“He doesn’t, let him leave.” Arthur growls.</p>
<p>You groan internally as a devilish smirk lights up the sorcerer’s face, “oh this is just too good to be true.” He laughs.</p>
<p>You gasp as you were flung into the wall and the sorcerer continued to torment Arthur swirling a sword looking ready to kill him urging you to get up and unsheath your sword to engage with him. Shocking him enough to make him stumble back a little, “Hey never got your name.”<br/>“Why?” He snarls.<br/>“I like to know the name of the person I’m fighting.” You swing at him.<br/>“Romulus.” He blocks.</p>
<p>You both exchange furious blows, but you are the superior swordsman. You slash his arm and disarm him making him hiss and vanish. Smiling you turn to face Arthur seeing his tired smile in return sheathing your sword. “Are you ok-” you breath hitches.</p>
<p>You felt as though you got punched in the back so spin around to see Romulus with a bloodied dagger, you grab his wrist but it's weak so he easily breaks free and plunges the knife into your stomach . He smirks as he pulls it out and you collapse on the ground. The world around you goes fuzzy, screaming muffles, a face appears above you but you can’t make out who it is. The world turns black. </p>
<p>~~~</p>
<p>Arthur picks up (Y/n)’s body, bridal style, while ordering the other’s to sweep the castle for anyone more intruders and to aid anyone who needs it. “Merlin, Gwaine come with me, we need to get (Y/n) to Gaius.”</p>
<p>They got to Gaius’ chambers with very few hassles and put  (Y/n) on the cot. “Please tell me he’s going to be okay.”<br/>“Sire I’m going to need you to leave the room.” <br/>“But-”<br/>“Please sire.”</p>
<p>Gwaine pulls him out of the room to leave Gaius and Merlin to do whatever they need to do.</p>
<p>~~~</p>
<p>The first time you open your eyes you are in a dark room and there are angry whispers at the foot of the soft bed you’re resting on. You lose consciousness again.</p>
<p>The second time you wake up you see Arthur sitting next to you asleep. Observing him you notice tears stained cheeks and dark circles around his eyes. He looks worse than he did when you came to save him. You decide against waking him up and close your eyes again drifting off.</p>
<p>The third time you woke up you were alone and felt disgusting, dry throat, gunky eyes, oily hair and sweaty. Thankfully there is a cup of water beside you, so you shakily grab it and take a few sips. It was dawn from what you could tell, you groan as you try to sit up, your back feels like it has been stretched and your stomach stings. Pulling away the shirt you had on you see stitches that don’t look all that appealing, definitely going to leave a scar, you wince as you twist in an attempt to see the one on your back. Then Merlin stumbles in and gawks a moment and you open your mouth to say something but he runs out. You hear shouting and next minute Arthur is in the doorway. He strides over to you but halts suddenly like he doesn’t know what to do. You look up at him and part of yourself say go for it, then he moves eloping you in a gentle hug as if he thinks you’ll break. You couldn’t think of anything to say other than, “I’m okay, Arthur.”<br/>“You nearly weren’t.” He whispers back.</p>
<p>That’s when the gravity of what happened hit you, you nearly died, the idea made your head feel fuzzy and your insides sick. You shake this off to comfort Arthur. “I know but your safe, I’m alive so all's good.”</p>
<p>Arthur breaks away and smiles. “(Y/n) I have a confession to make.”  <br/>You don’t dare hope. “And what would that be.”<br/>“I might quite possibly be a little bit in love with you.” He looks so scared at this moment.<br/>“Good cause I’m head over heels in love with you.” </p>
<p>Arthur laughs and kisses you gently, smiling into the kiss you lift hand up to caress his cheek. Arthur pulls away and sighs “I love you.”<br/>“I love you too.”</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>